Big-spending downtown Torontonians have taken in the past few years to whining about Winterlicious, but the two-week dining festival, running from January 28 through February 10, remains popular for a reason: it offers great value, particularly if you choose your reservations well. Here are a dozen of Toronto Life’s best bets. They’re older, more established places, generally, with kitchens that clearly care. And though we haven’t yet tasted the restaurants’ 2011 Winterlicious menus, they’re full of interesting, delicious-sounding picks.

Amaya The Indian RoomThis Leaside favourite was the first restaurant in the city to combine excellent Indian cooking with western-style service, surroundings and sommellerie. Its Winterlicious dinner menu is bargain-basement: $25, with options including mango-curry-coconut prawns, Rajasthani lamb shank curry and roasted marshmallow ice cream (so much better than kulfi). When a hot restaurant like Amaya prices its special menu so low, it’s natural to wonder if it’ll live up to its usual standards. We’re betting yes.Pro tip: If you can’t get in here, try Amaya’s more casual sibling, Amaya Bread Bar. The Winterlicious menu is the same, though the surroundings aren’t quite as polished or charming.

Ame
The Rubino brothers’ latest incarnation on Mercer Street is one of the most beautifully designed restaurants in the city. Though the regular menu is priced a bit high, the Winterlicious version, at $45 per person for dinner, offers decent value. The menu is meant to be shared between two diners, and includes miso-marinated striped bass, wagyu beef rice, sushi and sashimi, among other choices. Don’t expect the usual stuff; chef Guy Rubino lives to make food more interesting, more complex and better tasting than it sounds, and the sushi, though great, can be a little whack. The cocktails are weird and wonderful and will quickly run up your bill.

Auberge du Pommier
This is easily one of the most romantic restaurants in the city, all crystal and linen polish set in a 150-year-old woodcutter’s cabin. The kitchen is French and fancy, but with a good measure of Canadian-style worldliness for balance. We’re betting on the $45 dinner menu, which looks like excellent value. Choices include Wellington County beef au poivre over a butternut squash, pearl barley and sunchoke ragoût, coq au vin and warm spice cake with crème anglaise and armagnac-soaked prunes.

Biff’s BistroOliver and Bonacini’s classic downtown bistro can be easy to forget, as it’s been open for nearly a decade, and its Front and Yonge location isn’t as trendy as Ossington or Harbord. Still, it’s one of the best bistros in the city: solid and welcoming, with excellent, always-from-scratch cooking (they make their own pickles, bread and mustards) and an Old World charm that manages to sidestep the usual bistro insidiousness all the same. The Winterlicious menus—$20 for lunch, $35 for dinner—look very good; dinner choices include rabbit rillettes with that house mustard and mulled prunes, gâteau de poisson, braised pork belly with choucroute and apple gastrique, and medjool date cake with toffee sauce and lemon chantilly. The steak frites from Biff’s regular menu is excellent; the Winterlicious version should be good if they don’t dumb it down for the cheaper price.

CanoeYou’re probably not going to get into this three-and-a-half-to-four-star Canadian classic, and if you do, you won’t get the best food or service that Canoe’s got to offer. But even second-best should make for a great meal, and that’s not even considering the incredible, 54th-storey view. The menu ($25 for lunch, $45 for dinner) looks good: chicken and goose parfait with birch syrup and pickled vegetables; mustard-crusted pork loin; seared albacore tuna with root vegetable ragoût and coconut couscous; pear and rosemary pudding with maple anglaise and booze-soaked raisins.

Centro
This iconic uptown room had its heyday at the height of the Mulroney years, but it got a well-considered make-over this past year, as well as a smart new chef—Jason Carter, formerly of Susur—who’s doing very good things at the stove. The $45 dinner menu’s offerings include a “risotto croquette” (sounds a lot like arancini, which makes us ravenous) with stewed tomato and zucchini salad; rigatoni with classic roast pumpkin, sage, ricotta and pecan sauce; and something called “chocolate cheesecake coconut crumble,” which is the sort of dessert description that has us jumping for the telephone to make a reservation.

Corner House
Romantic, reliable and run by the same talented couple for what feels like eternity, this upper-Annex favourite is the sort of place that should do a great job with a few discount weeks. It’s hard to imagine chef Herbert Barnsteiner sending out a crappy product, even if it’s not his regulars in the room. His $35 Winterlicious dinner menu looks like a crowd-pleaser: warm smoked chicken salad with honey mushrooms, grilled prawns with herbs, cognac and garlic butter and Cornish hen are a few of the highlights.

DidierChef Didier Leroy is one of the best French chefs in the city, and his haute midtown room turns out simple, meticulous, mostly excellent dishes. Standout Winterlicious choices from the meaty, $45 menu include jarret d’agneau, terrine de campagne, tarte tatin, and sea bass done in the style of François I (you know, the male line great-great-grandson of Charles V of France).Pro tip: Didier offers a $58 prix fixe outside of Winterlicious.

Lai Toh Heen
Think high-end, impeccable and original Chinese cooking with western service and grace. The $35 dinner menu offers good value, with a dim sum amuse-bouche and such options as wok-baked lobster; deep-fried tofu with a king oyster mushroom, asparagus and bean salad; and fried rice and duck meat wrapped in lotus leaf.

Lucien
The room mixes casualness and elegance, and the kitchen, run by chef Scot Woods, is one of the most creative and consistently surprising (in a good way) in the city. It’s a fair bet that the Winterlicious raviolo, for instance, which is made with pumpkin, consommé, sage pesto, cured duck and romano cheese, won’t be quite what it sounds like, but better instead. Other options include B.C. cod with house-made chorizo, roast Tamshire pork with bacon, fennel, apple, beet and black walnuts and Ontario apple cobbler served with brown butter custard, walnut, sage streusel and goat’s cheese ice cream.

Noce
This warm, friendly and civilized room at the southeastern edge of Trinity Bellwoods Park isn’t flashy or buzz-worthy or terribly fashion-conscious—it’s just consistently one of the top Italian places in Toronto. It’s also rather expensive, save for these two weeks in January, making it the perfect example of Winterlicious’s raison d’être. The gnocchi here are unforgettably good, so we’re betting on the Winterlicious rendition, which comes served with a veal ragu and ricotta salata. There’s also pasta e fagioli; egg chitarrine (a thin pasta) with wild mushrooms, prawns, oil and garlic; a good-looking seared fish dish; and oven-roasted Cornish hen. Great-sounding desserts, too.

Reds
If this wine-crazy restaurant—with its 50 by-the-glass choices, its 30-selection cheese list and a menu by talented chef Michael Steh—were located on Bloor Street or Ossington or even uptown, it’d be hard to get a reservation. Reds is in the financial district, though, so it’s often rammed at midday but deserted in the evening. Winterlicious dinner options ($45) include curry-scented Dungeness crab cakes with shaved celery salad, and spiced peanut and coriander chutney; fancy-schmants mac-and-cheese made with truffle boscato cheese and a brioche crust; and a roasted apple bread and butter pudding with bourbon-spiked crème anglaise.

23 thoughts on “12 best bets for Winterlicious 2011: our chief critic goes through the menus so you don’t have to”

Isn’t Canoe closing for renovations?? No Mark McKeown restaurants taking part in Winterlicious? I hear most staff and chefs HATE Winterlicious…but it’s a great opportunity to get out during the January ‘doldrums’ and enjoy the food diversity this City has to offer, without ‘breaking the bank’.

I’ll never set foot in Noce again. The last time I was there, they were still doing the old “plate splitting fee”, hyping a dessert that allegedly took an hour to prepare (nothing like pre-selling something that people normally wouldn’t order) and doing the old “would you like flat or bubbly water?” trick to lure you into an expensive bottle of water. The food is fine…but the tricks are moochy.

@Rossvegas… plate splitting fee exists for a reason. You are sitting on valuable real-estate in that place eating half portions and drinking tap water! Of course they charge your cheap ass.
@mattagascar… So the menu is designed to make money for the owner? How dare they try to profit! Why else would any buisness run a promotion except to make money!

$45.00 per person plus a bottle of wine, tax, and tip still adds up, and the food and (especially) the service can be quite disappointing. Would never return to Canoe again for this very reason. But each time we bravely set forth hoping for the best, although must admit to fewer memorable meals each year and beginning to wonder if it’s still worthwhile. I remember one year when my hubby and I went to a different Summerlicious restaurant every night for a week and had wonderful meals each time.

Got agree on Auberge du Pommier. I’ve dined here several times over the years…. And you don’t have to dine with a lover…romance is for everyone. Here’s a mention on my blog (2010). http://wp.me/pDQWN-S

Hahahahah good one mattagascar …. 3 O&B empire restaurants what about something new and daring. Hahahahah I wish, this list is the same from 5 years ago. Seriously whats the newest resto on the list? Good idea but bad reporting.

The intro to the list said that they were the best bet restaurants. Nowhere did they say anything about newest restaurants and they actually explained quite extensively that these were older more esablished restaurants. Maybe you should actually read through the article before you rush to bash it. Or better yet, just read something else. Nothing worse than a reader who continues to come back to bash a publication they clearly have gotten bored with.

Being a chef who has worked many a winterlisious/summer. This is an attempt to drum up business in an otherwise quite period. Even though this really is NOT an accurate portrayal of the restaurant(s), it is an introduction! If your a true foodie you will recognize this, and in the event the “taste/ execution ” meets/ exceeds your expectation. you will return, spend/enjoy/ hire…. Top places never “Sit Back”! YES! The event(s) is a big time pain, & in many cases the clientele are SUPPER,SUPPER CHEAP! @ the end of the day, it is the community coming together to showcase POSSIBILITIES! Enjoy! Blessings to those who do have to work it! Especially kitchen staff!!!!!

Personally I would not recommend Corner House for a Winterlicious meal. From my experience about 3 years ago they CRAM in as many people as they can setting up extra tables in places where tables shouldn’t be. I would be curious if they are even meeting fire code regulations. I got placed over a heating vent and it was not a comfortable meal. Luckily we were in the first seating because the people in the second seating (or later in the evening) were all lined up along the stairs waiting for their table because there was no room in the “lobby” (as there is no real lobby).

I just had the Winterlicious lunch at Amaya and found it so-so. Had the mulligatawny, which was ‘meh’ (thin and served luke warm), veg curry – good, mildly spiced, and decent portion size unlike butter chicken which my friend had and contained very few pieces of actual chicken, followed by brownie dessert served in some kind of warm milk-like substance? Service was attentive but also felt kind of rushed despite it not being full (i.e. our bill was dropped in front of us with no question of if we wanted more drinks, coffee, tea etc.). I’ve never been to Amaya before this, but from what I’ve seen prefer its neighbour down the road, Karmasutra, both for value for money, ambience, and quality (mulligatawny is definitely better there). Just my two cents. Next will be checking out Auberge!

Went to Red’s last night and like every single Winterlicious meal I’ve ever had (with the exception of Canoe) it as ok. Itwas mediocre. Great excuse to get out but not usually even even worth the “discounted” price.

Winterlicious should be about bringing people into restaurants they might not otherwise go to because of cost. If you hook them on WL, then they might come back at full price. Some restaurants – like Bymark – succeed amazingly. I was there for Summerlicious – not overbooked, excellent service and for $25 at lunch we had tuna tartar ($16.95), a beef dish ($25) and dessert ($15) all off the regular menu and all wonderfully prepared. I have been back twice since for the full price menu and am going again for Winterlicious. On the opposite extreme, I went to Rosewater a few years ago and for $25 got a lame salad of greens wrapped in cucumber, salmon and greens and a basic dessert that was so forgetable I have no idea what it was. The City has introduced new rules that restaurants that apply for Winterlicious now have to demonstrate value for the money and have to meet certain pricing standards in terms of content vs. the regular menu and pricing.

Anyway, if you don’t like it, stay home, and if you like to go out and try new stuff…get on the phone. I am hitting Canoe, Bymark, Lee and Epic. Why not!

I went to El Maroc or the Moroccan Restaurant on Saturday (Front Street) – the food was luke warn – almost cold and tasteless. I will never go back there again. A waste of my time.
The comment on the stair wait at the Corner House is correct – but I enjoyed the food there.

Annona at the Park Hyatt is pure win this year – though the dishes are not special just for the event, they’re fantastic, and the service is both gracious and very friendly. The ideal Winterlicious experience. Be fairly warned: the sweet potato poutine with beef brisket is an appetizer which may just fill you up before the main course. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Bring an appetite!

Ignore all the complaints in the comments. Sure, Winter and Summerlicious are expensive. But it’s worth it if you know where to go, and the service in my (4) experiences has been fantastic. None of the servers have ever given the impression we were “lesser” because we weren’t usual customers, and both the quality of food and size of portions have been admirable. As for Oliver & Bonacini, there’s a reason they’re on here: those restaurants are the best in the city, and their ‘licious dishes (I’ve hit Auberge and Jump so far) are the ideal fare: filling, and great!

Joe Badali’s winterlicious. Great food and service. Drawback.Not a biggie but no introductory bread? You have to treat folks on the winterlicious menu as potential longer term customers. Not impressed with this decision.